Preclinical research is characterized by hypothesis driven programs to either discover or explore new insights into biological processes. A goal of these programs is systematic discovery and development of biomarkers, drugs, and therapies that will ultimately be translated from animal models to humans should they prove promising during preclinical studies. Small animal models of human diseases, particularly genetically engineered mice, are widely used in preclinical studies. Studies on distributed population groups (example group of animals which received a drug vs. control group of animals) are done to substantiate the hypothesis.
In vivo imaging permits both the temporal and the spatial bio-distribution of a molecular probe and related biological processes to be determined in a more meaningful manner throughout an intact living subject. It is possible to image multiple subjects simultaneously in a scanner in order to achieve higher throughput. Processing, evaluation and visualization of resulting image data may be performed using a pre-clinical workstation, such as the IMALYTICS Workspace from Philips Healthcare.